


Delicate

by chimaeracabra



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Comfort, F/M, Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 06:04:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19762117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chimaeracabra/pseuds/chimaeracabra
Summary: Bucky comforts his wife in her time of need.





	Delicate

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Secrets Aren't for Keeping](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2799851) by [chimaeracabra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chimaeracabra/pseuds/chimaeracabra). 



> I know it has been a little over a year since I wrote here, but I got this fire in my brain to write a story, which encompasses some autobiographical events. I just need to put it somewhere, or I won’t be able to stop thinking about it. It’s just a snapshot in my series Secrets Aren’t For Keeping.

It scared Bucky when he would come home and find his wife curled on the couch, shower floor, bedroom floor, or wherever she decided to lie down in her pain and cry once a month. Back in May, Cherise had shaken Bucky awake in the middle of the night only to apologize to him and tell him that she really needed to go to the ER. Despite being sleepy, Bucky wasn’t sorry at all she had woken him, and he rushed her to the hospital as quickly as he could. She’d had what the attending physician came in to tell them was a ring-enhancing hypodense cystic structure, which had ruptured and led to the buildup of fluid in her endometrium. It had been the cause of her pain and inability to lie down comfortably. She’d had a similar hemorrhagic cyst episode six years prior, before she and Bucky were married and she was still married to Steve. At times, Bucky wondered whether the fertility drugs they were trying for their final round of IVF had done something to Cherise beyond helping them try to conceive.

That Saturday evening, shortly after his 32k run with Steve, Bucky walks up the front steps and his ears perk up to the sound of Cherise crying. He gasps, pressing a hand against the screen to peek in at her through the window, where he can already see Cherise lying on the couch and crying.

“Cherry!” Bucky calls against the screen. Though the window is closed, he knows she can hear him. He then nearly trips, fumbling with his keys to open the front door. Still drenched in sweat, he rushes into the den to make his way to Cherise. She has her eyes scrunched closed tightly and is sobbing audibly.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” Bucky asks, diving for her. When she opens her mouth but is apparently in so much pain she’s having trouble forming sentences, Bucky starts to pick her up. When she screams and pushes at his chest, he places her carefully back on the couch.

“Don’t move me,” she exhales, gripping at her lower back on the right side, and Bucky’s eyes widen fearfully. It’s the same side on which she’d had the last issue with her ovary that sent her to the ER two months prior.

“Baby, you’re in pain. I need to get you to the hospital. It might be a torsioned ovary,” Bucky explains as calmly as he can manage, smoothing some hair out of her eyes. He hasn’t forgotten any of the terms the doctor explained to him before. He had read Cherise’s diagnostic papers multiple times since her last hospitalization, making sure that he would ask their fertility specialist at their next appointment if Cherise wasn’t pregnant by the end of the summer. And now she looks at him, regaining some composure, and gripping his arm tighter than he’s used to her doing when he tries to pick her up again.

“No.” She says calmly. She sighs, and the sound breaks Bucky’s heart. He can tell before she utters the words that they’d failed again, “I just got my period. I’m fine,” Cherise reassures him.

“You’re not _fine_ , Cherry. You never cry like that unless you’re in a lot of pain.”

“I just…it’s cramps,” she says, trying her best not to sound uncomfortable. Bucky shakes his head.

“No, baby. I’m going to take you to the hospital. I’m sorry, but we should really go.” This time Cherise sits up herself before Bucky can fully collect her from the couch.

“ _No_ , James,” she states, “I’m not going anywhere.” She wipes her eyes. Bucky sighs and kneels in front of her.

“Cherry, _please_. Be reasonable, doll. Remember what the doctor said about your ovary the first time you had to go to the hospital because of it? If it twists, that’ll—”

“I know, I know. It’s not that kind of pain,” Cherise explains, wiping her eyes, “I just have cramps.” She winces and clutches at her lower back again. Bucky sighs with frustration and worry.

“It’s just a stupid fucking period,” she says through gritted teeth. But Bucky knows she’s not angry with him, she’s unhappy to find that they’re no closer to having their own child. His eyes water but he holds the tears back. He cups Cherise’s shoulders.

“How do you know? Are you bleeding, honey?” he asks. Cherise nods.

“I can’t just let you be here in pain like this…where are your pills?”

Cherise shakes her head.

“Cherry, come on…If there’s no baby, it’s no use you being in agony.”

Cherise was prescribed norcos back in May for her hospitalization. She was reluctant to take them, even when she was in need of them, because she didn’t like the idea of risking them impacting a potential baby had she gotten pregnant shortly after the hospitalization. Aside from the fact that the narcotics made her itch uncontrollably, she was really concerned with the damage anything she introduced into her body might do to a fetus.

“In my sock drawer,” she sighs.

“Okay. Stay right here—don’t move.” He kisses Cherise’s forehead for a long moment, rubbing her upper back simultaneously. She starts sniffling again and at this point, his eyes drip. He rushes up the stairs in his drenched shorts to pull open Cherise’s sock drawer and fish out the 325mg norcos in an orange pill bottle. There are 7 left, 8 less than what she’d taken her first week out of the ER.

“I got you, baby,” he says, rushing down the stairs and into the kitchen to fill a nice cold glass of water to go with the pills. Cherise is still sitting up straight on the couch when Bucky makes it back into the room.

“Here you go, baby,” he says, sitting beside Cherise and handing her the pills. She takes them without hesitation, downing the whole thing. She sighs, resting her head on Bucky’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry I’m sweaty,” he says, despite making no effort to move away from her head.

“It’s okay. I don’t care,” Cherise states, exhaling. Bucky smiles. He already knew this. She was clearly just comforted by his presence. Little did he know, his body odor never really bothered her much to begin with. She had smelled worse. She winces, jumping slightly, sliding down Bucky’s front, until her head is in his lap. Cherise whimpers and Bucky rubs her side comfortingly.

“It’s gonna be alright, Cherry,” he says, “I’ve got you…I’ve got you.” Bucky hears her sniffling all over again and shortly, his kneecaps are wet with tears.

“Cherry, I really should take you to the hospital,” he says, his heart racing. He picks Cherise up bridal style, which only causes her more agony. He freezes in place.

“No—no! Please… _please_ just give it an hour and if I’m still in pain, then you can take me. Not before that.”

He sighs, gradually sitting back on the couch. He knows that she’s _tired_ of being in the hospital. They’ve been going every month for almost a full year, trying to figure out why Cherise isn’t getting pregnant and how to fix that. Cherise reaches for the remote on the coffee table. But she doesn’t turn the volume up very far at all. After a moment stroking her hair in silence, when he notices that Cherise has stopped crying, Bucky speaks.

“You know something, doll? I bet…one of these days…we’re going to be sitting in here watching the latest kids’ animal movie with a little boy between us…I can see him now, Cherry…He’ll be…three or four. He’ll have my eyes and nose…and your chin and forehead…” The longer Bucky prattles on, the more he can feel Cherise’s cheek pucker against his legs. He doesn’t have to look at her to know that she’s smiling.

“We’ll call him Theo ‘cause he’ll be the greatest gift that God’s ever given us. And maybe we’ll even give him a little sister…” Bucky’s voice falters into a whisper and he’s finally cognizant of the wetness on his face, sliding through his stubble. He wipes his eyes. To his relief, Cherise laughs happily for a moment.

“Theodore Barnes. I like it.” She says.

“Yeah…would you be okay with our son having that name?”

“Of course, babe. It’s a good name…Theo.”

“Um…are you still in pain?” he asks. It feels like a lifetime since they’ve been sitting there. Cherry shakes her head for no and Bucky sighs a sigh of relief, throwing his head back against the couch. Cherise sits up and straddles him, resting against him, melting into him.

“Don’t I stink, Cherry?” he asks her.

“Not to me.”

He grins, happy she’s no longer in pain.


End file.
